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El Noi de la Mare facts for kids

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"El Noi de la Mare"
El noi de la mare.jpg
Song
Language Catalan
English title The Mother of the Child
Genre Folk music
Songwriter(s) Traditional

El Noi de la Mare (The Child of the Mother) is a traditional Catalan Christmas song. The song was made famous outside Spain by Andrés Segovia who used to perform Miguel Llobet's guitar transcription as an encore.

Lyrics

The main stanza has four verses and begins mostly with Què li darem a n'el Noi de la Mare? In some traditional ways of singing the song every pair of verses is repeated twice. The first stanza of a common version is:

Què li darem a n'el Noi de la Mare?
Què li darem que li sàpiga bo?
Panses i figues i nous i olives
Panses i figues i mel i mató

What shall we give to the Mother's Child?
What shall we give that he will find tasty?
Raisins and figs and nuts and olives
Raisins and figs and honey and mató

Variants

The text exists in other slightly different variants.

Classical vocal arrangements have been made by Joaquín Nin-Culmell for soprano and John Rutter for choir.

A version of this in English has been reworked and developed to produce the carol "What Shall we Give?" as sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Recordings

  • (anon.) Title track of El Noi de la Mare, Mother and Son Zefiro Torna, Cécile Kempenaers, Els van Laethem, Jan van Elsacker and Lieven Termont (2006)
  • (anon.) Catalan Songs (Victoria de Los Angeles album)
  • (anon.) José Carreras Sings Catalan Songs

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: El noi de la mare para niños

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